THE BOOK OF CHILAM BALAM OF CHUMAYEL

INTRODUCTION

The Books of Chilam Balam are the sacred books of the Maya of Yucatan and were named after their last and greatest prophet. Chilam, or chilan, was his title which means that he was the mouth-piece or interpreter of the gods. Balam means jaguar, but it is also a common family name in Yucatan, so the title of the present work could well be translated as the Book of the Prophet Balam.

During a large part of the colonial period, and even down into the Nineteenth Century, many of the towns and villages of northern Yucatan possessed Books of Chilam Balam, and this designation was supplemented by the name of the town to which the book belonged. Thus the Book of Chilam Balam of Chumayel is named for a village in the District of Tekax, a short distance northwest of the well-known town of Teabo.

This Prophet Balam lived during the last decades of the Fifteenth Century and probably the first of the Sixteenth Century 1 and foretold the coming of strangers from the east who would establish a new religion. The prompt fulfilment of this prediction so enhanced his reputation as a seer that in later times he was considered the authority for many other prophecies which had been uttered long before his time. Inasmuch as prophecies were the most prominent feature of many of the older books of this sort, it was natural to name them after the famous soothsayer.

The Books of Chilam Balam were written in the Maya language but in the European script which the early missionaries adapted to express such sounds as were not found in Spanish. Each book is a small library in itself and contains a considerable variety of subject material. Besides the prophecies we find brief chronicles, fragmentary historical narratives, rituals, native catechisms, mythological accounts of the creation of the world, almanacs and medical treatises. Many such passages were no doubt originally transcribed from older hieroglyphic manuscripts, some of which were still in existence in northern Yucatan as late as the close of the Seventeenth Century 2. As time went on, more and more European material was added to the native Maya lore. In some of the books not only do we find the ritual of a religion which is a

mixture of the old faith with Christianity, but there are also translations into Maya of Spanish religious tracts and astrological treatises, as well as notes of events which occurred during the colonial period. In two of these books we even find part of a Spanish romance translated into Maya. 1

The ability of the Maya to write their own language in European script was due to the educational policy of the Spanish missionaries. Although at first they rather admired the Maya for having a graphic system of their own, they were determined to destroy the old manuscripts and eradicate all knowledge of the glyphs from the minds of their converts. The Indians had a great reverence for their hieroglyphic writing which was permeated with the symbols of their old religion, and the friars felt that if they could wipe out this knowledge and substitute for it the European system of writing, it would be an effective means for the complete Christianization of the native population. This should be the easier, since the knowledge of hieroglyphic writing was confined to the priesthood and certain members of the nobility. Diego de Landa, afterward bishop of Yucatan, burned twenty-seven hieroglyphic manuscripts at the famous auto de fe in Mani in 1562, and although many of the Spaniards severely criticized him for this, there is little doubt that other missionaries followed his example whenever they had the opportunity.

The chiefs and former priests were ordered to send their sons to the schools established by the Franciscan friars, where they were taught to read and write their own language in European letters. Although some of the more promising pupils were taught Spanish, there does not seem to have been any general policy of attempting to impose the language of the conquerors upon the Indians. In the first place such a scheme was plainly impracticable owing to the comparatively small number of Spaniards in Yucatan and, besides, many of the missionaries frankly admitted that they preferred the local officials of the villages in their charge not to know Spanish. 2 This was probably in order that the latter should not complain too frequently of ecclesiastical discipline to the lay officials, who were sometimes at odds with the Franciscans. From a purely educational point of view the schools were a success, for after a time every village had its town clerk who could read and write, as well as many members of the more important native families; but the Spanish settlers complained in the latter part of the Sixteenth Century that many native schoolmasters and choir-masters were still practising idolatry in secret and that idols had even been found in the school-houses. 3

If such persons as these were not completely reformed, it is hardly surprising to find the successors of the former prophets and priests, the herb-doctors and sorcerers of colonial times, making use of this new and more convenient graphic system of the white man in the pursuit of their ancient

professions. After Landa's famous bonfire at Mani, it is needless to say that the surviving hieroglyphic manuscripts were kept concealed, although now and then one of them came to the notice of the Franciscans. Seventy years after the Conquest, Aguilar wrote that "in these they painted in colors the count of their years, the wars, epidemics, hurricanes inundations, famines and other events." 1 It is remarkable that not a single one of these books is known to have survived in Yucatan at the present time, for as late as the close of the Seventeenth Century Avendaño was quite familiar with them. In his account of the visit he made to the heathen Itzá at Tayasal he writes: "At the instant that we landed and I saw the said column and mask, 2 I came to recognize it since I had already read about it in their old papers and had seen it in their Anahtés, which they use, which are books of barks of trees, polished and covered with lime, in which by painted figures and characters they have foretold their future events." 3 This was Avendaño's first visit to any of the heathen Maya, and he could only have seen such hieroglyphic books as still survived in northern Yucatan.

A comparison of these descriptions with the existing Books of Chilam Balam shows plainly that many portions of the latter are simply transcriptions of the old hieroglyphic manuscripts into European script. Aguilar mentions one of these early transcriptions which was written in a copy-book and contained an account of the creation of the world. He confiscated this book from a choir-master of the town of Sucopo. 4 As time went on, the transcriptions gradually took the place of the older hieroglyphic books. Fewer people were now able to read the glyphs, and much as the clergy condemned the Books of Chilam Balam, they were not considered such prima facie evidence of the crime of idolatry as was anything written in hieroglyphics. Aguilar also tells us how in their assemblies the Indians read the fables and histories contained in the books. Some of the contents were chanted to the accompaniment of a drum; old songs were sung; 5 and the dramatic representations, the names of which we find listed in the Motul dictionary, were enacted. 6 Cogolludo later wrote of such meetings that "God knows what goes on there, and at the very least many of them end up in drunkenness." 7

None of the Books of Chilam Balam that have come down to us were compiled earlier than the last part of the Seventeenth Century, and most of them date from the Eighteenth Century. The older ones were probably worn out by constant use. Nevertheless we have Maya legal documents covering almost

every decade from the year 1557 down to the present time, and a comparison of the language of these with that of the Books of Chilam Balam shows that many passages of the latter were copied verbatim from Sixteenth and early Seventeenth Century originals.

At the present time we have photographic reproductions of the Books of Chilam Balam of Chumayel, Tizimin, Kaua, Ixil, Tekax and Nah as well as copious extracts copied from the Mani and Oxkutzcab manuscripts. The latter were made by Dr. Hermann Berendt and are now in the Berendt Linguistic Collection of the Museum of the University of Pennsylvania. This scholar also made copies of the Chumayel and Tizimin manuscripts about sixty years ago, when they were in better condition than when the present photographs were made. Consequently a complete transcription and translation of the texts can only be made with the aid of these copies. Tozzer gives the names of four others known by reputation only: the Books of Chilam Balam of Nabula, Tihosuco, Tixcocob and Hocabá. 1 Genet and Chelbatz give a brief description of a Book of Chilam Balam of Telchac. 2

Of these books the Chumayel, Tizimin and Mani manuscripts have the greatest value for the study of Maya civilization, although the others are not lacking in interest. The Chumayel was a small quarto volume which appears to have originally consisted of fifty-eight numbered leaves. There are only 107 written pages in the University of Pennsylvania reproduction. Three leaves, numbers 1, 50 and 55, are missing, and there are breaks in the text at these places. The other pages seem to have been blank. The writer has seen only the leather cover, in which a hole had been burned; the book itself had disappeared. A number of the leaves are either torn or have crumbled away along the edges, and some of the pages are badly water-stained in places. Nevertheless the manuscript is very legible on the whole. Although it dates only from the year 1782, the language suggests the Seventeenth Century much more than it does the Eighteenth. The book contains comparatively little of the intrusive European material which predominates in other Books of Chilam Balam written at so late a date. The drawings which illustrate the volume are quite European in character, although many of the ideas which they represent are purely Maya.

Brinton was the first to make a translation of any considerable portion of the Chumayel. Using the Berendt copy of the text, he translated the three chronicles found in Chapters XIX, XX and XXI of the present work. 3 Martinez Hernandez has published his own Spanish translations of these chronicles, also the story of the Last Judgment in Chapter XXIII and the first part of the creation narrative in Chapter X. 4 Tozzer has translated the prophecy of Chilam Balam in Chapter XXIV and the chronicle in Chapter XX. 5 The writer

has published translations of Chapters II, IX and XIII, 1 and the entire manuscript has been freely rendered into Spanish poetical prose by Mediz Bolio. 2

We know from internal evidence that the Chilam Balam of Chumayel was compiled by Don Juan Josef Hoil of that town, as we find his name signed to a notation written in the same hand as the rest of the book and dated 1782. 3 Only a few interpolations added at later dates are written in different hands. Subsequently the book passed into the possession either of a certain unnamed priest or of his secretary, Justo Balam, who inscribed two baptismal records on one of the blank pages in 1832 and 1833. 4 In 1838 Pedro de Alcantara Briceño of San Antonio made a record on the same page that he had purchased the book "in his poverty" for the price of one peso, probably from a priest, although the writing is very indistinct. It is possible that the priest was Don Diego Hoil, the son of the writer. On another blank page 5 the same Pedro Briceño noted that he made a loan of the book. The date here is badly written, but it is probably 1858. Some time during the next ten years it was acquired by Don Audomaro Molina, how or where, we do not know; but the latter stated to Sr. Martinez Hernandez in 1910 6 that he had given it to Bishop Crescencio Carrillo y Ancona. It was already in the Bishop's possession when Dr. Berendt copied it in 1868, and he permitted Teobert Maler to make the first photographs of it in 1887. When Bishop Carrillo died in 1897, the book passed into the hands of Don Ricardo Figueroa, and through the efforts of Sr. Molina it was loaned in 1910 to George B. Gordon, Director of the Museum of the University of Pennsylvania, who photographed it the same year. In 1913 the Museum published & handsome facsimile reproduction from which the present translation is made. The original was returned to Figueroa, in whose house Dr. S. G. Morley saw it in 1913. After Figueroa's death the manuscript was removed in 1915 to the Cepeda Library in Merida, but when Dr. Morley visited the Library in 1918 it had disappeared and its whereabouts is still unknown. As Dr. Morley has already noted, "In view of its doubtful fate, it is nothing short of providential that two photographic copies of it exist, the one made by Maler in 1887, a copy of which is in the Gates collection, and the other made by Gordon in 1910." 7

The attempt has been made to learn something about Don Juan Josef Hoil, the compiler of the manuscript, from the surviving members of the Hoil family of Chumayel, and although he has not been completely identified, the results of the inquiry are not without interest. The writer is indebted to Sr. Martinez Hernandez of Merida for the following information.

There appears to have been but one Hoil family in Chumayel. The present generation consists of Miguel, care-taker at Uxmal; Alejandro, a brakeman on

the Ferrocarriles Unidos de Yucatan; Transito and Valentina, all of whom were born at the village of Xul. After much consultation with the various members of the family, Miguel Hoil reported on February 28, 1928, that their father was Epitacio Hoil, who married Cristina Parra and had a brother, Maximo. The grandfather was Juan José Hoil, married to Felipa Mendoza. He could hardly be the Don Juan Josef Hoil who signed the manuscript in 1782, however. The great-grandfather was Damaso Hoil, the natural son of a Doña Guadelupe Hoil, and married to Narcisa Guemes. From his time down to that of Epitacio the family seems to have lived at Tekax. Doña Guadelupe was the sister of Don Diego Hoil, curate of San Cristóbal. This is a suburb of Merida and was an important Indian parish, which indicates that Don Diego was a man of some learning and considerable importance. This would take us back to about the time when the manuscript was written, but unfortunately our information ceases at this point. It seems likely that the Don Juan Josef Hoil who wrote the Chilam Balam of Chumayel was the father of Don Diego, the curate, and of Doña Guadelupe. A search of the records of the parish of San Cristóbal might be rewarded with the confirmation of Don Diego's parentage. If Doña Guadelupe's natural son, Damaso, was brought up in her father's home at Chumayel, it would be most natural that Damaso should give his own son the name of his maternal grandfather.

As to the manuscript itself, the most probable conclusion from the information which we have is that after Don Juan Josef Hoil's death it passed into the hands of Don Diego and that he was the priest who sold the book to Diego Briceño in 1838.

Needless to say, the Book of Chilam Balam of Chumayel is difficult to translate, although the spelling is better on the whole than that of some of the other manuscripts. As Professor Tozzer has noted, many words are separated arbitrarily into syllables, the same word sometimes being divided in several different ways on the same page. 1 Some passages are logically arranged in paragraphs, which is a great help, but many are not. There is little division of the text into sentences, and a capital letter rarely begins either a sentence or a proper name. Consequently it is necessary to establish a critical text before attempting a formal translation.

The greatest difficulty of all is found in the numerous obsolete words and phrases which occur. It has already been noted that the Chumayel is a compilation made from various earlier works, many of which were probably copied from still older books. This would account for an occasional corrupt text, which can often be rectified from parallel passages or similar stereotyped phrases occurring in the other writings. The meaning of obsolete words and phrases can be learned in three ways. They may be found in the older dictionaries which were written at a time when they were still in use; a more

modern Maya expression or even a Spanish word is sometimes substituted in a parallel passage in another manuscript; and when other means fail, the use of the same word or expression in a number of different contexts will cast considerable light upon the meaning. Sometimes the Maya writer of a manuscript will even explain the significance of an obscure term which he thinks his readers might not understand. For an explanation of the many proper names found in the Chumayel, especially those of deities, we are obliged to rely largely on the Spanish source material such as Landa, the Relaciones de Yucatan, Cogolludo, Aguilar and Lizana. This information may be supplemented by the reports of such modern ethnological investigators as Tozzer, Redfield, Thompson and Gann. Many unfamiliar words not found in any Maya dictionary have turned out to be plant-names. These will be found in the Maya medical literature, and a great many of them have been identified by the botanists. 1

It has been suggested that a modern Maya Indian should be of great assistance in translating these old books, but none of the few efforts which have been made along this line of inquiry have had much success. The vocabulary of the average Indian is limited. Many words are now used with a changed meaning, and he is entirely too ready to resort to a typical Volksetymologie to explain any word which has now passed out of current use. This is evident from the explanations made by natives to the botanists in the case of plant-names composed of obsolete words. The errors of such native derivations are amply demonstrated by the Sixteenth Century Motul dictionary, in which many of these old words are found. Up to the present a little has been done in this respect with the native Maya priests, or h-menob, some of whom can still recite a number of the old incantations. Such men would be likely to rely more on tradition than on their own improvised etymology. Dr. Redfield's elucidation of the puzzling name of Ah Muzencab, the bee-god, from the explanation of one of these native sorcerers is an example of the results which may be looked for from this line of inquiry. Needless to say, it is difficult to persuade these native priests to explain their rituals.

Doubts have been expressed in the past as to whether it was possible to translate some of the passages in the Book of Chilam Balam. of Chumayel. Such scepticism was not unreasonable in view of the limited amount of related material accessible to the student at the time. In more recent years, however, additional manuscripts have been collected, and photographs or photostats have been made of nearly all the Maya writings known to be in existence. The archæological evidence uncovered in the course of the past few years and the reports of modern ethnologists have furnished explanations for a number of the obscure statements found in the Books of Chilam Balam. In view of these facts a translation of these books seems feasible at the present time; but there is little doubt that further search among the archives of Spain

will bring to light additional reports on the natives of Yucatan, possibly some of the lost source material known to have been written by the early Spanish missionaries. Also the discovery of more Maya manuscripts and the results of further archæological and ethnological investigations should furnish an answer to many of the problems as yet unsolved. Another source of information should be the thorough study of the more closely related languages of the Maya stock. It seems likely that at least some of the obsolete words in the Books of Chilam Balam will be more fully explained by similar terms which have survived in the other languages.

PREFATORY NOTE TO THE MAYA TEXT

Like the other Books of Chilam Balam, the Chumayel manuscript is written in the European script which the Sixteenth Century Spanish missionaries adapted to the Maya language of Yucatan. It differs only in a few particulars from ordinary Spanish script. The letters d, f, g, q and r are not employed in writing Maya words, as the sounds which they represent do not occur in Maya. Some Maya writers substituted ij for ii, but neither the Spanish nor the English sound of j appears to be indicated. C is pronounced somewhat like the English k. The other letters have approximately the same sound as in Spanish except for the following, which represent sounds which do not occur in Spanish, viz. pp, th, ɔ, ch and k. The writer is indebted to Dr. M. J. Andrade for the following description:

"These sounds are very familiar to those who have studied the Indian languages of North America, where they are at present represented respectively by the phonetic symbols p', t', ts', tc' and k'. They are the so-called glottalized or fortis sounds. It is difficult to convey an idea of the acoustic effect of these sounds to those who have never heard them. Roughly speaking, it may be said that Maya pp and th are emphatic articulations of Maya p and t, and that a similar correspondence exists between the series ɔ, ch, k, and tz, ch, c. A careful enunciation of the k-sound, however, does not affect our ears as a mere emphatic articulation of the Maya c, but that is also the case in other Indian languages in which this sound occurs. In Maya these fortis sounds are not articulated as energetically as in many North American languages, particularly in those of the Pacific coast. On the whole they may best be compared with the corresponding sounds of the Dakota Sioux, although with many Maya speakers they are so weak that the untrained ear can not distinguish them from the unemphatic sounds." 1

In writing the double vowels, Maya writers are frequently inconsistent, although the compiler of the Chumayel is less so than most of them. They sometimes write them with a single vowel. Of these Dr. Andrade states that the sound is--

"two moras long with a fall in pitch on the second half if it is a double vowel. In current usage there is no articulation of two separate vowels, but a continuous vocalic sound. This throws light, I think, on the discrepancy found in the manuscripts. If

this phoneme was even in earlier times a single vocalic sound with double quantity, we can readily see that the use of two letters for its orthography was somewhat artificial, and in this, as in all artificial spelling, individuals are more likely to make mistakes."

We find in the use of certain letters an inconsistency that is somewhat similar to that found in many of the Spanish manuscripts of the colonial period. Since a consistent notation is desirable in the present edition of the Maya text, the writer has followed that of Pio Perez for which there is precedent among both Maya writers and the Spanish authors of Maya grammars, vocabularies and dictionaries. It is the notation of Beltran, except that he writes p for pp, and of the Motul dictionary, except for the latter's frequent use of ç instead of z. The following tabulation will explain the present writer's method of avoiding the inconsistencies which occur in most Maya manuscripts.

Present edition

Variants occurring in Maya MSS.

i (vowel)

i, y

ii (double vowel)

ii, ij

y (semivowel)

t, i, ll (rare)

u (vowel and semivowel)

u, v

c

c, qu (before e and i, rare)

z

z, ç, s

pp

pp, p

Only one abbreviation is generally used in the Maya manuscripts: this is the character y, which stands for yetel, a word having the double meaning of "with" and "and." A few manuscripts, chiefly legal documents, substitute for this another abbreviation, yt, and only rarely is the word yetel written out in full. In the present rendition of the Maya text the writer has followed Brinton's example and transcribed this abbreviation just as it is found in the Chumayel manuscript instead of writing out the word in full.

The text of the Books of Chilam Balam is not divided into sentences, and many portions are not separated into paragraphs. Words are frequently wrongly divided into syllables, and proper names rarely begin with capital letters. Inasmuch as an excellent photographic reproduction of the original manuscript of the Book of Chilam Balam of Chumayel has been published by the Museum of the University of Pennsylvania and is accessible to the student, it has been considered advisable in the present edition to divide the Maya text into such chapters, paragraphs, sentences and words as are called for by the meaning of the subject-matter, and to begin sentences and proper names with capital letters. The method of determining which words are proper names has been discussed elsewhere. The text is often divided into short phrases by colons or dashes. Such punctuation is sometimes inconsistent and even occurs in the middle of a proper name, but it frequently corresponds somewhat to the meaning of the text. For this peculiar system of punctuation, the Maya student is referred to the published reproduction of the manuscript.

We now come to the mistakes found in the manuscript. Juan Josef Hoil was on the whole an unusually careful copyist, and the writer is inclined to

ascribe most of the errors to his sources. As Professor Tozzer has already noted, 1 these texts are probably copies of copies and have been garbled somewhat in passing from hand to hand. In the Chumayel manuscript a garbled phrase is often accompanied by a vacant space, indicating that the copyist was not able to read all the words of his source at that point. In these cases it is often possible to correct the text from a parallel passage in another manuscript. In the case of such a correction, however, the reader is referred to a foot-note in which the corrected word or phrase is given as it is actually written in the manuscript. Sometimes a passage is obscure because of the omission of a word or phrase. When the latter is supplied from another source, it is enclosed in diamond brackets and its source indicated in a foot-note. In some cases where a parallel passage radically alters the meaning of the text, the alternative reading is given in a foot-note.

In transcribing the photographic reproduction of this lost manuscript, the Berendt copy of the original has been used constantly for comparison. This has been especially helpful in deciphering badly written and faded portions of the text, and is indispensable where the edge of a page has crumbled away after the Berendt copy was made. Missing words supplied from this copy are placed in diamond brackets, and the source is indicated in a foot-note.

Misspelled words constitute another difficulty. Many errors are due to a habit of the Maya writer who often employs the letter ç for z and then occasionally omits the cedilla. Such an omission may completely change the meaning of the word. Another error sometimes found is when the Maya writer has omitted the bar from the p (pp) and ch. Often these mistakes in orthography can be corrected from a parallel passage, but occasionally the meaning of the context must be depended upon in the case of an obvious mistake or a slip of the pen. Corrections of orthography are referred to a foot-note in which the word is given as it stands in the manuscript.

It is needless to say that a critical text can be established with much more assurance for those portions of the Book of Chilam Balam of Chumayel for which parallel passages can be found in other manuscripts. Such corresponding passages are not absolutely the same. The phraseology differs slightly. Some contain a certain amount of material omitted by others, and an archaic word or phrase in one may be replaced in another by a more modern expression or sometimes even by a Spanish word. Nevertheless the language is sufficiently similar to indicate that they are drawn from a single original source.

Where the Chumayel narrative is not duplicated elsewhere, we are frequently aided by comparison with other texts of the same general character. This is because the Books of Chilam Balam abound in certain stereotyped phrases often employed in similar contexts. When a portion of such a phrase appears to be garbled and we find the same phrase occurring elsewhere in

much the same context, we can make the correction with a fair degree of certainty. In any case the garbled phrase will be found in the foot-note, and the reader is at liberty to draw his own conclusions.

As previously stated, all supplied material is enclosed in diamond brackets < >. Any words or letters believed by the writer to be intrusive are enclosed in square brackets [ ].

Certain abbreviations have been employed in the notes to the Maya text. These are to be explained as follows:

Ber. = Copy of the Book of Chilam Balam of Chumayel by Dr. Hermann Berendt.

C = Photographic reproduction of the Book of Chilam Balam of Chumayel.

In the present rendition of the Maya text it will be seen that marginal notations have been made showing the corresponding page numbers of the University of Pennsylvania Museum reproduction of the manuscript. Inasmuch as some of the earlier commentaries on the Book of Chilam. Balam of Chumayel make references to the actual folio numbers of the manuscript, a correlation of these with the page numbers of the reproduction will be useful. Some of the folio numbers have disappeared, owing to the crumbling away of the corner of the sheet, but the sequence of the text enables us to apply them in the following table.

Manuscript

U. of Penn. reproduction

Manuscript

U. of Penn. reproduction

Manuscript

U. of Penn. reproduction

Folio <1>

missing

Folio 21

pp. 36-37

Folio 41

pp. 75-76

<2>

pp. 1-2

22

38-39

42

77-78

3

3-4

23

40-41

43

79-80

4

5-6

24

42-43

44

81-82

5

7-8

25

44-45

<45>

83-84

<6>

9-10

26

46-47

46

85-86

<7>

11-12

27

48-49

47

87-88

8

13-14

28

50-51

48

89-90

9

15-16

29

52-53

49

91-92

10

17-18

302

54-55

<50>

missing

11

19-20

31

56-57

51

pp. 93-94

12

21-22

32

58-59

52

95-96

13

23

33

60-61

53

97-98

14

24-25

34

62-63

54

99-100

<15>

26

35

64-65

<55>

missing

16

27

36

66-67

Unnumbered

p. 101

17

28-29

37

68-69

56

pp. 102-103

18

30-31

38

70-71

57

104-105

19

32-33

39

72

58

106-107

20

34-35

40

73-74

Footnotes

3:2 Don Juan Xiu of Oxkutzcab possessed such a book in 1689, and Father Avendaño was still able to learn to read hieroglyphic writing before he went to convert the heathen Itzá in 1696. Cf. Morley 1920, p. 507; Codex Perez, p. 166; Means 1917, p. 143; Appendix D.